Currently, subscribers of television service enjoy many benefits of their services. These benefits include the ability to view program information, record favorite programs, review pre-recorded programs without interruption of commercials or advertisements, and shop for merchandise through a variety of shopping networks.
Although some entertainment providers allow subscribers to order merchandise or movies on demand, many of them make such offers only when the subscriber is viewing or recording the merchandise or movie in question. For example, when a subscriber saw a preview of a movie shown on the television, the provider may offer the subscriber an option to purchase the movie by using a remote control. While this type of offers interacts with the subscriber, it is subordinate to what the subscriber is watching at the time or recorded at a previous time. Thus, the offers are limited to a particular product or service the subscriber is viewing at a given time.
In addition, these offers are generally made to all subscribers who happen to be viewing the program at a given time. Thus, no distinction is made between offers to different subscribers in the same household. For example, a male subscriber in one household who is viewing a program relating to fitness and exercise may purchase a treadmill at a given time. A female subscriber in the same household may at a later time order a blouse over the shopping network. Currently, entertainment providers fail to distinguish between these subscribers for purpose of making future offers. Thus, entertainment providers only provide static and passive offers based on previous purchases. This leads to lost opportunities in marketing, because it fails to recognize the need of different subscribers for different variety of products or services.
Therefore, what is needed is a new method and apparatus for interactive television offers presentations that provide active and dynamic offers to subscribers. These offers not only based on what the subscribers are interested or viewing at a given time, but may be based on what the subscribers potentially are interested or have ordered previously in order to achieve better marketing objectives. In addition, these offers distinguish between different subscribers for marketing purposes and make offers based on these distinctions.